The 13th World Conference on Tobacco OR Health

Objective: Lombardy Region (Northern Italy) has been promoting smoking prevention since 1995, when the Regional Council approved the first draft of the Guidelines for tobacco prevention and in year 2000 the “Working Group for Tobacco Prevention” has been created (within the WHO CINDI-Italy Programme).

Methods: From 2003 the Project “LIBERI DAL FUMO” involves every grade schools, from the kindergarden to the secondary school, according to the approved international guidelines reccomandations (CDC and WHO). Much time and many resources were addressed for training professionals (administrators, teachers) involved, at different level, in the project and the School Administration was greatly involved. “Liberi dal Fumo” is a community trial funded by a grant from the CARIPLO Foundation, a privat regional holding. All the fifteen Local Health Units of Lombardy are involved in the project enrolling more that 32.000 students. Also parental involvement is implemented. For every single activity an evaluation of the effectiveness is foreseen by comparison of indicators between treated and controls; the main indicators, collected by specific questionnaire, concern participation, satisfaction level of teachers, parents involvement, penetration of the messages into the families, percentage of students who remembered the program at the end of the year, smoking prevalence, students referring the intention to became smokers, knowledge about smoking related hazards.

Results: The final results of this study will be shared in the summer 2006.